Google's Android Market now has over 400,000 apps, and the pace of new code additions is accelerating.
News of this milestone was announced by the mobile-app marketplace watchers at Distimo, in Utrecht, The Netherlands, which says that the 400,000 line – which counts only currently active apps – was crossed this past weekend. …

What we really need to compare on is how many apps are statistically significant, downloaded by a certain % of the install base, how many have been user-rated at 4/5 stars etc. The vast majority of apps in all markets are utter crap you'd not even download if the developer paidd you to.

having to download it to review it sucks

there's a large number of dodgy fake Angry Birds apps on the Appslib store and I flat out refuse to download them to be able to comment on them with a warning. One apparently reputable app I downloaded is now spamming me via my notifications tab with free iPads and other items if I click through their web page... when I find out exactly which app started up that rogue process I'll get very upset with them...

Thanks for putting in the bit about having to sift through a bunch of crap to find the actual useful apps. This is main reason that I've never been very impressed with the whole "We have millions of apps, so our platform is better!" claims.

User rating manipulation is the next big thing

I downloaded a game the other day as the user rating was so high. I played it a few times and it was ok, then it hit me with a message offering me a free power up in exchange for a positive review on market, it even gave me a button to click to go straight there and it suddenly became clear why there were so many 5* reviews.

I've never used the Apple app store, but the problem with any distribution channel which contains so much content is always going to be finding an effective way of sorting the wheat from the chaff. Good job El Reg do app of the week I say :)

The flip side to this is rating manipulation by what someone called "1 star dummies" recently on a google android dev group, which is a fitting description. It can be quite annoying when your free app gets a 1 star rating because it only does what the description says and not everything under the sun. It can also be annoying when people don't read instructions and claim it doesn't do what it actually does.

I'm not talking about 1 star ratings because people simply don't like it either (which is fair enough if that's their opinion, although even these can be a bit harsh sometimes for a free app). Some of these 1 star ratings are unnecessarily offensive, and there's no way to even write a reply at the moment (like you can for example on ebay feedback). They're not technically spam so can't be reported, they seem to be the product of bored teenagers most of the time.

Each of the above adds real helpful functionality to my phone. Most of these apps are good, the rest do what is needed. Other people's needs are different but I would be surprised if there isn't a wide selection of good useful apps to fit most of them.

Finding these gems amongst the grot is another matter. But they are there. Lifehacker, El Reg and other review sites are often the best way of choosing rather than diving straight into the Market.

I think the big difference is when I bought Symian software (pre Ovi-store) I was paying £4-8 to find out it was rubbish and full of bugs. Now I can do that for 99p (and get a refund in the first 15 mins if it really blows).

Markets

After 3 months with a Droid tab I have found precisely one app that has impressed (Opera & Swype excluded as std on any device for me).... TuneIn radio fwiw, all others I have come across are just buggy, generally superfluous & as mentioned above, the big G know enough without having my bank details too.

Symbian on the other hand... All good from a years experience and I have spent money, it may not have the headline numbers but maybe that makes it easier to find the good ones?

Some of the shit people download tho (regardless of OS choice)... Baffling, then again if there are nuggets that will pay £4.50 a week sub for a screensaver on their phone, an app that farts for a quid seems like a bargain.

Symbian?

Are you guys comparing with the OVI market? That thing was absolute crap! The last time I used it, when I was still saddled with a crappy, reboot prone, N96, the search didn't work, most stuff was for pay only and expensive, and had a very limited selection. At least on the android market there are choices, you're informed on what permissions the app wants (and with some ROMs/add-ons you can block those on a per-app basis), there are lots of free and FOSS software, and the search has always worked for me.

As for the market promising "at least 1000" but only showing 480, maybe the others aren't available for your region/country? That is what I hate most about the market, but I understand why it was implemented.

98% of app store content is utter shite.

I never look at anything other than what's in the top 50 under games and apps on the Andy store. Alright some crap still gets through occasionally, a quick look at the reviews soon reveals what is and is not shite. At least most of the stuff has climbed up to the top 50 due to some interest and usefulness.

Some good apps on Android Market

I got my daughter a Samsung Tablet for Xmas and have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of some of the free apps.

Have only upgraded one, a "Kids Shape Puzzle" which she really likes, to the paid for version.

Upgrading to the prenium app proved rather more difficult than expected but I received excellent e-mail support from the folks at Intellijoy. Far better support for this sub £2 app than I would have expected.

re: LOL

"Look at all the idiots that believe there aren't crappy apps on Apple Marketplace."

Which posters were you, for want of a better word, thinking about? So far, not one person has said "there aren't crappy apps" in Apple's App Store.

I will give you that two people gave an opinion that the Apple App Store was superior to the Android Market Place, based on their experiences of using both, but that doesn't exactly count as fanboy ranting.

"The only difference is on Android, much of the crap is free, on iOS, you have to pay for the crap."

Oh, yeah? What about music production software - good luck find something worth using on Android Marketplace.

I'm sick of Android - malware, buggy apps - was going to buy a Samsung Note and it can't even run the latest version of Android. Yes you will say 'yet' but it's just p1$$ poor. Think I will hold out for an iPhone / iPad instead - my wife has an old 3GS and she still gets the latest updates and it's a much nicer user experience.

I have used both Samsung and Apple tablets - they are both good - they both have plenty of free and paid-for apps (although more / better apps for most people with the Apple iPad). Sure - if you want root access and to re-rom it buy the Android - but if you try them both - most people would keep the Apple - it's simply a bit 'better' and the whole setup and use it easier / more polished. It's no wonder Apple have 70% of the market.

point of irrelevance

Ok, so now we have enough crappy titles to go around.

I've found the Apple App Store has a better selection of better games and better music apps.

Android Market has a better selection of useful utilities and location based apps, as well as better sync'ing stuff (PIMs, file sync's, managers). Also has a variety of alternate browsers, e-mail programs etc, most of which is unavailable for iOS due to Apple imposed limitations.

So what's new?

You can find almost anything you want for iOS or Android. For iOS, some limitations may apply, such as user-inaccessible file system related lack of file transfer stuff etc.

Android Market apps include everything from wallpapers (live or otherwise), widgets (which 90% of which are useless or covered by the phone OEM's built in bloatware) or system utilities to get your Android running smoothly again!

Yes, I downloaded loads - then had to remove it all because of the phones limitations.

By contrast, I've found far more consistently great IOS apps. Yes, there is crap - crashing apps that require reboots, apps that are full of ads, but by and large, I've been much happier.

Games come to iOS first, they perform better on my devices, the curation of the Apps store also helps weed out the wheat from the chaff.

Google need to employ a full time team on their Market to really get it upto scratch, which will mean they need to reject lots of apps. Unfortunately that'll cost them money, and they are just after ad click throughs - which is the whole purpose of Android afterall!

Buying ratings on the app store

One of the problems with the IOS store is that the crap gets highly rated while decent apps get drowned out in the noise.

I'd always wondered why the fart apps etc could do so well and then I found out via the veteran 8 bit developers, the Pickford Brothers (Zub, Feud, etc).

They released their first IOS game, Magnetic Billiards (get it, it's brilliant!). Just after release they were surprised to be contacted by a company who offered to sell them high scoring reviews on the app store.

Turns out that people are making money by selling reviews scores. So anything can end up with a high rating providing you have the cash.

They were quite shocked and naturally declined, but the answer as to why crap can get so highly rated is right there.

Apple have the power to stop this as surely they can check if an account has actually downloaded the app. But it's not really in their interests is it? They get the sale regardless.

@ Mr C Hill

Which crap did you have in mind? And which fart apps also, I've never seen these in the Top 25 list, for instance.

Were the company that contacted the Pickford Brothers able to do as they said, or was it a scam? Did they contact Apple about it?

"Apple have the power to stop this as surely they can check if an account has actually downloaded the app. But it's not really in their interests is it? They get the sale regardless."

Erm, in order to review or rate an app you have had to download it - if you haven't, you'll get a message saying you have to download/buy it first with your Apple ID before you can review it.

The same method is in force for the OS X app store - if you've obtained the sofware from another source (e.g. retail box of from the developer's site), you can not review it on the Apple App Store.

That isn’t to say that people don’t true to rig the App Store ratings, but Apple has taken action in the past about people (e.g. developers) suspected of doing.

As for it not being in Apple’s interests to do anything, how do you work that one out? If the Store is filled is rubbish apps that get high ratings, do you not think that punters will notice or get fed up?

Even worse I've seen sites which advertise a "bad review" service for money. They give your competitors bad reviews on the Android market. This is presumably a bit easier as you can do multiple competitors with the same account.